Heidi Williams, 13, of Durango, left, offers support to 15-year-old Miranda Schumacher of Kansas as she makes a few notations in her journal while they work on an exercise involving building trust within the group. Heroic Journey is a unique partnership between Outward Bound and Judi's House designed for teens coping with the death of a loved one.

During a lesson on support and teamwork, a group visits the "spiderweb." Chris Caouette, 15, of Windsor, Conn., is handled carefully by his new friends.

Miranda Schumacher, 15, left, and Colton Mingledorff, 16, participate in Heroic Journey, where teens who have lost loved ones get grief support woven into an Outward Bound curriculum. Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post

Teens from across the country who are coping with a death of a loved one are offered scholarships for the week-long courses that intersperse grief support with the self-discovery lessons of an Outward Bound wilderness experience.

Earlier this month, three dozen other grieving teens joined Miranda for the outdoor course that includes a backpacking excursion into the San Isabel National Forest and the hope that the challenges will help them learn to cope with their losses.

Miranda’s is perhaps the most brutal among the tough stories shared by the teens.

Police say Miranda and her 11-year-old brother witnessed their father put a gun to their mother’s head and pull the trigger at their Leoti, Kan., home in March.

Miranda is the key witness against her father, Todd Schumacher, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail on first-degree-murder charges in the death of his ex-wife, Ann Schumacher.

Surrounded by peers who had lost loved ones to cancer, drugs, drinking, illness or suicide — Miranda says she is seeking solace.

“I am looking for some calmness and for fun,” she says. “I wanted to be around others who aren’t tip-toeing around saying, ‘Oh, you are so strong.’ People don’t know how to treat me.

“Sometimes my life looks like a sob story. But it’s my life. It’s not a sob story.”

Ex-Bronco started Judi’s House

Grieving teens have some of the hardest challenges, says Brian Griese, the former Denver Broncos quarterback who eight years ago started Judi’s House. Judi’s House collaborates on the Heroic Journey and raises funds for its scholarships.

“Teenagers are historically the hardest population for us to work with because the natural growth and development of a teen is to become more independent from their parents,” Griese says. “To have a significant loss, it’s counterintuitive for them to reach out for support.”

Griese’s mother, Judi, died of breast cancer when he was 12.

“I really would have benefited to meet some kids who were going through what I was going through,” he said.

Judi’s House has worked with more than 2,600 children and their adult caregivers since 2002. In the past five years, about 370 teens and young adults have been on Heroic Journey. Stout, 39, outreach director for Judi’s House and an Outward Bound alum, conjured up the idea for Heroic Journey after recognizing the cathartic relief that being in the wilderness had on his own life.

Stout’s younger sister died when he was a boy, and his father died from a heart attack when he was a teen. Stout says he struggled with his grief.

Stout believed a course combining the rigorous, confidence-building lessons of Outward Bound with the counseling and support of Judi’s House could help others wrestling with their grief by allowing them to discover how resilient they really are.

During the Heroic Journey course, teens are stripped of their iPods and cellphones. They sleep on the ground under tarps. They rock climb, backpack into the forest, summit a peak and spend a night alone in the woods. The course is 90 percent Outward Bound and 10 percent grief counseling, Stout says.

Counselors from Judi’s House are embedded with the group and weave grief work throughout the curriculum. Kids learn to express themselves, support one another and find they aren’t alone in their sadness.

“It changed my life completely,” says Tawni Creta, 17, of Westminster, who took the course last summer as she grieved her mother’s suicide three years before. “It made me realize I can get through anything if I don’t give up. I had wanted to give up on everything.”

Erica Hilscher, 24, from Richmond, Va., has been struggling with the death of her sister, Emily, who was one of the first students killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

“It has been a very solitary thing,” Hilscher says of her grief. “I have kind of lived with it on my own. It has been a long, hard journey.”

Hilscher took a version of the course for young adults in July. On a high-ropes course through pine trees about 40 feet off the ground, participants were tied to another person and forced to navigate the challenge together.

“We managed to get through,” she says. “It made me realize I can do more than I think I can and a little support goes a long way,” she says. “Sometimes, you can’t do it alone.”

Mark Clubb, grief counselor at Judi’s House, sits at the end of the ropes course and watches a group navigate the challenge.

The teens encourage one another, cheering when they pass a tough section and urging one another across.

“With something like this, you really see the support,” he says.

Grief is isolating, especially for teens. Many people don’t know what to say to the person who has lost someone, Clubb says. And the person who is grieving also may not know what to do.

Clubb describes three primary tasks of mourning: accepting that the person is gone, permitting yourself to be sad and integrating that grief into your life so you can function again. He points to the group on the ropes course.

“They are all in these various stages,” he says.

Just then, 16-year-old Emily Rosenburg of Brighton steps off the course. Her mother died in December. She beams as she finishes the task.

Lessons from challenges

“I thought I was going to have to quit,” she says. “This made me feel so good about myself, that I was able to accomplish something. I think how proud my mom would have been.”

After the exercise, counselors and instructors gather the group in a circle to debrief, asking participants what the challenge taught them and how they could use the experience to help them through their sadness.

“I thought of my dad yelling at me to do it,” says Rosie Blasingame, 17, of Little Rock, Ark., whose father died in September of liver failure.

Brook McClintic Griese, director of research at Judi’s House and Brian Griese’s wife, is working with the University of Colorado to track the long-term effects of the Heroic Journey. Participants are interviewed as much as a year after the course.

Initial findings show participants are “significantly less likely to hide their distress from others,” she says.

“We have been blown away by some of their statements about the positive ways Heroic Journey has affected them,” she says. “They report improvements in coping and self-esteem. It’s exciting to see how a year later, they still feel it has such a large effect on them.”

The course is filled with rituals and ceremonies that help teens express themselves.

For the mountain climb, participants tape their loved one’s name to their boots for the hike to the summit.

For many, the most emotional exercise comes on the second day.

The group gathers in a circle next to the creek. A pot is filled from the stream and passed around. Teens ladle water into a bowl, and each person is asked to say a word or two to their loved one. After two days of introductions and getting to know one another, emotions are laid bare.

“I just want to say I love my mom,” says Emily, breaking down. “I miss her, and I want to see her again.”

Deceased mothers, fathers, friends and grandparents are mentioned. Tears fall as the sun begins to set over Mount Massive.

“You are a constant source of inspiration and love, and I miss you,” says Colton Mingledorff, 16, of Carbondale, whose mother who died of melanoma in January. “I’m sorry things had to happen this way.”

When the bowl reaches Miranda, she speaks quietly.

“I love you,” she says, dipping the ladle. “And I’ll take care of Matthew, Megan and Dad, and I’ll take care of myself too.”

Immersed in sorrow

Colton and Miranda then carry the bowl of water to the creek, followed by the rest of the group, who stand on a nearby bridge. As the sunset catches fire, the two solemnly pour the water into the creek.

Miranda clutches her head and begins to weep, then cry, then scream. Weeks later, back at home in Kansas City with her aunt, Miranda reflects on the moment.

“I just kind of let myself think about it. I hadn’t thought about it in depth,” she says. “It’s like I didn’t really go through it. I wouldn’t let myself dwell on things that I would miss and never get.”

The experience calmed her, she says.

“I don’t even know what happened. It was like a switch,” she says. “I felt more calm. I feel more at peace.”

Jeremy P. Meyer was a reporter and editorial writer with The Denver Post until 2016. He worked at a variety of weeklies in Washington state before going to the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin as sports writer and then copy editor. He moved to the Yakima Herald-Republic as a feature writer, then to The Gazette in Colorado Springs as news reporter before landing at The Post. He covered Aurora, the environment, K-12 education, Denver city hall and eventually moved to the editorial page as a writer and columnist.

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